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Dear Friends of Lewis & Clark,
 I will be on my way in a few days to the annual meeting of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, which this year is being held in Charlottesville, Virginia. At the Doubletree luncheon on Monday, August 6th I will receive the 2007 Meritorious Achievement Award from the foundation. Most of the time I'll be out in the corridor selling my book at the vendor's tables and serving as a Nebraska table for some Lynch prairie "dawgs" and other items from the Mouth of the Platte Chapter. I am looking forward to the evening reception at Monticello, the home of President Thomas Jefferson; the dinner at the 1784 Michie Tavern; and going on the bus tours to Ashlawn, the home of President James Monroe, and to Montpelier, the home of President James Madison.
For years my Windows XP computer has had a screen saver image of Indian Hall at Monticello, the image seen at the top of this page. I never grow tired of looking at it, and I can't wait to finally visit Indian Hall, which was the grand reception room for Monticello, and to tour the building and its grounds! I wonder if the evening reception will take place in Indian Hall?
You might have the same image on your computer. Go to Controls>Display>Desktop and look for "Southeast 1-1." It is beautiful. Let me know if you have any luck finding it.
Indian Hall was where the Lewis and Clark artifacts  were displayed and where a little prairie dog from the prairie dog town at "Old Baldy" hill near Lynch, Nebraska lived for a while before being sent over to live at Charles Willson Peale's Museum on the second floor of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
I have a new video camcorder and I will try my best to take some good images to share with you.
Kira
kira@lewisandclarktravel.com Visit our website |
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Montana Film Office Inquires About Undaunted Courage HBO Mini-Series
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 Helena Independent Record reporter John Harrington followed up on our story last month about the scheduled 2008 HBO mini series starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton as William Clark and Meriwether Lewis. In an article published on 7/29/07 he reported that Sten Iverson of the Montana Film Office contacted National Geographic Films and found the series is still being written and isn't in production yet. Filming locations have yet to be determined--though how could they not film in Montana!
You may order Undaunted Courage through my Amazon Affiliate Bookstore; it is one of my Top Fifty Lewis and Clark books.
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The Blackfeet Encounter with Lewis: Two Worlds at Two-Medicine
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Curly Bear Wagner, the well known Blackfeet historian and tour guide, is the star of a new film, Two Worlds at Two Medicine, created by Wagner and Indiana film maker Dennis Neary. The DVD is being sold on Curly Bear's Going-to-the-Sun website. The 35 minute video was a big hit with an audience at Western Historic Trails Center at Council Bluffs, Iowa when I showed an excerpt from it during a talk I gave on Lewis's Encounter with the Blackfeet.
After giving my talk I wrote a blog called Lewis's Fateful Encounter with the Blackfeet--Was It a Set-Up? My idea is a new interpretation of events: that Lewis intended to provoke a fight with the Blackfeet as the opening incident in the war between the United States and Britain for control of the Pacific Northwest. Through years of studying the history of this time period I gradually realized that the Revolutionary War dragged on for forty years, until the end of the War of 1812 in 1815, and that Indians were often the instruments of British policy. Read my blog to learn more and see whether you think my idea has merit.
Wagner gave a talk and showed the video at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming recently, as reported in the Billings Gazette newspaper on 7/28/07. The Gazette article says the film will be shown on almost 200 PBS stations, but no time frame was provided. The DVD has beautiful scenery and interviews with well known Native Americans and gives new information from Blackfeet history.
The Blackfeet have lived along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains from the Saskatchewan River to the Yellowstone River for at least 3,000-5,000 years. They offer reservation tours, and tours to one of America's top tourist destinations, Glacier National Park, which is located next door to the reservation. The Blackfeet Nation Store sells a Lewis and Clark-Blackfeet Country set of coins and a medallion, which are some of the outstanding collectibles of the bicentennial years. I feature the area in my book, and you may explore website links on the Trip Planner, Region Seven.
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Ted Turner Has World's Largest Buffalo Herd
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 About 800 people from around the world attended the Third Annual International Bison Conference at Rapid City, SD on July 22-28. The conference is held every seven years and alternates between the United States and Canada. Former U. S. Senator Tom Daschle and media magnate Ted Turner were the keynote speakers.
Daschle told how once there were an estimated 70 million buffalo on the North American plains, whose numbers were reduced to less than a thousand during the 19th Century. Now there are over half a million buffalo, located in every one of the 50 states, and Europe, Russia and Australia. I featured as many buffalo destinations as I could find in my book, including this herd at the Triple U Buffalo Ranch, where Dances With Wolves was filmed, near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. See Region Six in the Trip Planner.
Ted Turner, who owns the largest buffalo herd in the world, 42,000 buffalo, has 13 buffalo ranches located in CO, KS, MT, NE, NM, OK and SD. He couldn't bring himself to eat buffalo meat for the first 15 years he owned buffalo; but now he has 48 Ted's Montana Grill restaurants marketing buffalo meat and plans to open 48 more.
Erika Lesser, director of Slow Food USA. an eco-gastronomic organization, also was a keynote presenter.
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Start Getting Your Photos Ready for the Trail Gallery Forum Launch in October
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 Freda Meister of One Fine Day Photography in Billings took this photo of the new statue of Sacajawea and Pomp in Livingston, Montana. The website for the statue points out that Sacagawea has more statues than any other American woman but this is the only one to show her on horseback, and to show Pomp as a toddler.
In October we will be launching three interactive forums, a Travel Forum, a Study Group Forum, and a Photo and Video Trail Gallery. Now we will all know what to do with our photos and videos, and maybe we can assemble images of every Sacagawea/Sacajawea/Sakakawea statue in America! But first we will have to figure out where they all are. It would be fun to do a Google Earth map too. But that's another project.
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Prayers & Cards Requested for Carol Grende's Own "Arduous Journey"
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 Carol Grende, whose sculpture "When They Shook Hands the Lewis and Clark Expedition Began" is displayed at the Falls of the Ohio Interpretive Center in Clarksville, Indiana, is very ill with lymphoblastic leukemia. She is shown here with her statue of "Sacajawea Arduous Journey." Her friends all along the trail are requesting our prayers and cards. She and her husband David Carmona is staying at an apartment near the hospital in Houston. Send cards to Carol Grende and David Carmona, Esplanade Apt. 1077, Box 62, #1 Herman Museum Circle, Houston TX 77004.
Donations are sought for purchasing the heroic size "Sacajawea Arduous Journey" sculpture to give it a permanent home at the Great Falls International Airport, where it is currently on display. Make checks payable to GFAA Special Projects. Donations may be sent to Don Peterson, 3229 Eighth Ave N., Great Falls MT 59401
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Charlie Russell Masterpiece Being Restored at Montana State Capitol in Helena
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 Check out the Virtual Tour of the House of Representatives where this mural painting is found on the website of the Montana State Capitol. The mural is valued at around thirty million dollars. It is being restored by Randy Ash, an art conservator from Denver, Colorado. The 12 x 25 foot painting has not been cleaned in 95 years. It should be spectacular when it is finished. A wonderful three day road trip could be made from Helena to Ross' Hole south of Missoula in the Bitterroot Valley. The Road Trips book offers a variety of routes across the Rocky Mountains and things to do along the way. It gives more travel information than the website. You may also visit the Trip Planner for both Regions 7 and 8.
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Osage Orange Trees Travel Back Home
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Osage Orange Tree seedlings were carefully transported across country from the historic Saint Peter's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to Camp Dubois and the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at Hartford, Illinois by Ed Scholl of the DESC. The seedling were planted at Camp Dubois by members of the Discovery Expedition of St Charles on July 20th. The trees are descendants of original osage orange fruits sent to President Thomas Jefferson by Meriwether Lewis in 1804. He collected the fruits from trees in the St Louis garden of Pierre Chouteau, who had acquired them from Osage Indians. The Indians highly valued the trees for making the highest quality bows for hunting and they are still valued for making fence posts and railroad ties. In Omaha, Nebraska where I live, osage orange fruits are sold in the grocery stores in the fall. They are a stinky and sticky fruit thought to repel insects.
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We are Proceeding On along the Lewis and Clark Trail, developing an internet heritage tourism trail across the United States. Please add a link from your own website to the Lewis and Clark Road Trips website and subscribe to the blog. We will link back. Contact me if you would like to see something featured in this newsletter. If you can suggest stores which might carry the book, I would appreciate an email, and I will follow it up.
Sincerely,
Kira Gale
River Junction Press LLC |
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Lewis and Clark
Road Trips
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Lewis and Clark Road Trips: Exploring theTrail Across Americaby Kira Gale"this outstanding guidebook is necessary for any traveler... for all travel collections" Library Journal
$29.95, 274 pages, 161 maps, over 400 photos, full color Amazon Affiliate BookstoreWebsite Bookstore Featuring the Top Fifty
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Featured Sales Outlets
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If you are selling Lewis and Clark Road Trips, and are not on this list, send me an email. If you want to sell the book, visit our retail orders page.
Columbia River Gateway Bookstore Cape Disappointment Ilwaco WA
Fort Clatsop Bookstore Astoria Oregon
Blackfeet Nation Store Browning Montana
Powell's Book Store Rare Books Section, Denver CO
Skamokawa Center Skamokawa Washington
Garst Museum Greenville Ohio
Appaloosa Museum, Moscow Idaho
Great River Road
Interpretive Center, Ste Genevieve, Missouri
Jefferson National Memorial Arch, St Louis Missouri
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General Crook House Omaha Nebraska General Dodge House Council Bluffs IowaLewis and Clark Boat House and Nature Center, St Charles MissouriMissouri River Basin Lewis and Clark Center, Nebraska City NebraskaKreycik Riverview Elk and Buffalo Ranch, Niobrara NebraskaDakota Dinosaur Museum Dickinson, North DakotaLog Cabin Visitors' Center Vincennes IndianaCottonwoods Gift Shop, Fort Mandan Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, Washburn North DakotaArt's Sleeping Buffalo Resort Store, Malta MontanaKlein Museum, Mobridge South DakotaPortage Cache Store Lewis and Clark National Historic Interpetive Center Great Falls MontanaSquire Boone Caverns near Historic Corydon, IndianaAtchison Visitor Information Center, Atchison KansasMuseum of the American Quilter's Society, Paducah KentuckyWestern Historic Trails Center, Council Bluffs IowaStore of Discovery, Lewis & Clark State Historic Site, Hartford Illinois |
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Past issues of the newsletter are available in the Media section of the Lewis and Clark Road Trips website. | |
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